Dear Reader,
I am getting used to it I am afraid. I am becoming a Saramago character in “Blindness”.
It all started a year ago when It was announced on the news. Surprise and wander in the beginning.
A “what the hell” feeling with a big question mark in the end. Is it for real?
Βy Anastasia Koga
I had enjoyed the book deciphering its meaning and realising its symbolism.
I had never thought though that it would become my reality.
And it started.
Stage two. The spread of fear. Death announcements with numbers increasing day by day. Now what? Restrictions, lockdowns were imposed.
Suddenly my freedom was limited.
Everything I took for granted was shuttered. I felt “unreasonably” restricted in my own peaceful free up till then environment. “Unreasonably”?
Could it be so serious?
I was convinced it was going to be over soon. But it was not.
Stage three. Limited freedom to make sure I had the essentials to survive. And the mask. I could not breathe. I suffocated. Literally and metaphorically.
I wanted to take it off to breathe. And if I breathed death?
Second thoughts. And the looks!!
Nobody would dear sneeze and everybody looked as if the person were a walking bomb!
Suspicion for hugs, kisses affection.
No, we were not allowed to express any such feelings.
Those looks of my younger students who were longing for a hug of reassurance and security!
Stage four. Distance and confinement.
It lasted too long. So difficult to function through the screens with all the problems. Thank God for technology though.
At least we were not deprived from education and employment.
Still, I had the feeling that not everybody was entitled to it.
There were, there are children that do not have the right equipment or their connection, our connection is 5 out of 10 times unstable or non-existent. Despair. But there was, there is no other way.
The worst thing is that I am getting used to it.
I am becoming institutionalised. I prefer staying in my house hidden “protected”. I no longer want to go out, mingle, socialise.
I am afraid of the sudden bright light of the sun and its effects on my eyes.
I am afraid of going to stage five: becoming a character in Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale”
